We're all in the gutters, said Oscar Wilde, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Someone in Sao Paulo has a message for football's governing body and it comes directly from the gutter: FIFA GO HOME.

It's written in large white paint, and in large capital letters, in a storm drain running parallel to one of the clogged freeways on the way to the Arena Corinthians - the venue for the World Cup opener between the host country and Croatia on Friday morning (AEST).

A message for FIFA. Photo: Andrew Webster

Unless you've taken the metro - provided its workers are not on strike - the graffitied message cannot be missed as you make your way from the heart of Brazil's largest city, out on to its clogged freeways, out past the favelas that rest precariously under highway overpasses, to the start of a month-long festival.

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It is a festival many do not want, but most of Brazil still desperately wants to win.

FIFA can go home - but we'll keep that gold trophy, thanks very much.

Neymar: Brazil's poster boy for the World Cup. Photo: AFP

For all the negativity surrounding this World Cup - from tear gas being used to quell striking rail workers in Sao Paulo on Monday to unfinished stadiums - it does not stop the pressure mounting on Brazil to win it.

"The goal is to win the World Cup," Neymar, Brazil's most critical player, memorably said last November. "We know that there is a tremendous amount of pressure, it's almost an obligation."

Much of Brazil is understandably furious their World Cup is going to cost close to $12 billion in the face of failing infrastructure and low wages, but the likes of Neymar are cashing in.

Rivalled only by the indefatigable Pele, the boyish face of the 21-year-old Barcelona striker is plastered, seemingly, on almost every available space of concrete in this city of 22 million people.

He has attached his name to all manner of brands, and is even featured on the cover of this month's Brazilian edition of Vogue alongside model Gisele Bündchen, with cardboard cutouts of the pair on many street corners.

FIFA can go home - but we'll make what we can out of you while you're here.

Good luck to him. This is his chance to shine. Yet the pressure Neymar and his teammates are facing is palpable.

Australia's godfather of football, Johnny Warren, came to Brazil more than 30 times because he adored their relaxed attitude to life.

"Poor but happy" was a mantra Johnny appreciated, and it's reflected in the way they play their football.

But the samba becomes less enjoyable when their side falters on the world stage. For some, the pain of 1950, when Brazil inexplicably lost the final to Uruguay 2-1 and the country descended into mass depression, still lingers.

It was the last time Brazil hosted the World Cup, and the comparisons to this one are too juicy to ignore.

In 1950, the Brazilians built the Maracana in the heart of Rio de Janeiro for this event.

It was finished in record time, a far cry from the sounds of jackhammers and drilling still bouncing around the Sao Paulo arena with less than 48 hours remaining before an opening ceremony that will feature Jennifer Lopez.

Brazil was so favoured to beat Uruguay in the final, newspapers declared the day before, "These are the world champions". Rio's mayor went further and publicly declared them victors, congratulating them on their success.

Then the crowd of nearly 200,000 fans was silenced with 12 minutes remaining, with a move that lasted six seconds, when Uruguayan star Ghiggia scored the match-winning goal.

As he said years later: "Only three people have, with just one motion, silenced the Maracana: Frank Sinatra, Pope John Paul II and me."

The story of the "Maracanazo" is best explained in Futebol, the landmark exploration by journalist Alex Belos of Brazil's obssession with the game.

"Brazil is not short of footballing glories," he wrote. "They are somehow not enough. Brazil can shout and cry but it will never win the final of the 1950 World Cup. A football result has possibly never had such a strong and enduring impact on the emotional life of a nation."

While some sections of Brazil want FIFA to go home, it does not stop their sense of nationalism, especially now.

The national flag hangs from windows, doors, balconies, from cars that weave too fast in and out of heavy traffic.

They also adorn the nondescript football pitch of red dirt, in the poorest area along the road to the Arena Corinthians.

Poor but happy, but World Cup defeat hurts this country deeper than most.

Didi Fonseca owns Copacabana. Not the beach but the Melbourne bar in Smith Street, Fitzroy.

A former policeman who moved to Australia decades ago, he doesn't recall 1950 as bitterly as 1982, when the side - featuring Zico - lost to Italy in the second group round.

"I cried," Fonseca recalls. "Not me - the entire country. It was the saddest day of our lives ... Then Australia was similarly robbed against Italy in 2006, and that became the saddest day of my life."

There are a lot of people in the gutter in Brazil, but what happens if anything less than a World Cup victory materialises, when the World Cup has cost so much?